


love / smoke / cough

by waltherp38 (phineas)



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Ballroom Dancing, F/M, M/M, and ofc lupin pushes jigens hair back, pining? perhaps?, sorta - Freeform, the fujilup is onesided, there's cigarette lighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 05:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11640051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phineas/pseuds/waltherp38
Summary: “I’ve got more than just that one.”“Where?”“None of your business. Why d’you wanna steal from your gunman?”“I just like seeing your face.”





	love / smoke / cough

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted from tumblr! https://waltherp38.tumblr.com/post/163527050355/love-smoke-cough  
> i love kudos and comments and questions

“I’ve got more than just that one.”

“Where?”

“None of your business. Why d’you wanna steal from your gunman?”

“I just like seeing your face.”

A beat. Jigen sets down what’s left of the cognac on the motel table and gives his partner in crime a sidelong stare, calculating. Lupin can’t keep himself from smiling because Jigen looks good without the hat: soft and candid. His bangs are long and he has so much hair it puffs out in a funny shape without something to hold it in place.

When Lupin makes a sound half way between a sneer and a chuckle, Jigen shuffles to the bed without a word. It seems he was searching for a tell on Lupin’s face, but came up with straws. He turns the suit jacket in his hands until he finds the pack of cigarettes and sighs.

“You’re a hard guy to understand, you know, Lupin… Tsk. Where is that thing?” His words come out obstructed with his lips half closed around the filter. Lighter in hand, Lupin ambles over and flicks on a flame. Jigen cranes his neck forward and affords the thief with the sight of stubble dotted over the wrinkle at the side of his mouth. His brow visibly relaxes as he inhales. The sound of a far away ambulance siren leaks into the room, its sharpness deafened by insulation and wallpaper.

Lupin takes his thumb off the sparkwheel, tucks the lighter into his back pocket and comes close enough that the tips of their noses touch. Jigen blinks, the smoke held still in his lungs. Ash burns red and orange at the end of the cigarette.

“Hey.” Lupin speaks softly, his voice mingling with wisps of nicotine and tar. Jigen slowly exhales and as the cigarette tips downward, Lupin takes itfrom his partner’s lips.  “I want to kiss you, Jigen.”

Smoke flows from Jigen’s mouth.

“Okay.”

Lupin’s heart hammers beneath the golden silk of his tie. He parts his lips, presses the side of his nose to Jigen’s, and breathes in the billows of malboro.The nicotine swirls in his head and he, cigarette still burning in one hand, tilts his head so that he can kiss Jigen as slowly and deliberately as he can.

They kiss. And kiss. And kiss. Lupin feels cinders on his hand suddenly and pulls back, dropping the burning piece of filter paper.

“Ouchhh, and just when it was getting good, too… “ Shaking out his hand, Lupin blows air at the singed knuckle hair on his index finger with watery eyes. Jigen snubs the bit on the carpet out with the heel of his Prada dress shoes.

“Don’t be a baby.”

“Huh? Wait a second, Jigen--” Lupin’s complaints die in his throat when Jigen takes his hand and holds it. The gunman, with his hair just slightly away from his eyes, inspects Lupin’s fingers in such a caring way-- Oh, the look in his eyes! The softness of his smile!  -- that Lupin’s heart grows five sizes. He can’t help the infatuated laugh that bubbles out of his mouth.

“Okay, I was being a baby,” says Lupin quickly, his pout splitting into a beam and his words turning into slurred, saccharine cooing. “Now let’s get back to what we were doing! My beautiful, dutiful Daisuke--”

_Daisuke?_

Jigen sidesteps and Lupin stumbles to keep himself from going face first into the floor.

“I change my mind. Save that for Fujiko,” Jigen says, his bottom lip looking especially pouty now that Lupin has spent some time sucking at it. It’s why Lupin has a hazy smile still on his face when he replies, “Hmm? What’s Fujicakes got to do with it?”

The way Jigen’s shoulders go up to his ears is cute. The way he surges forward and locks his arm around Lupin’s neck is not.

“Don’t give me that stupid grin, Lupin! I swear, next time I’ll just shoot you!”

“Ow-ow-ow-ow! Okay, okay! I get it! Let go of me, you foul beast!”

With a scoff, Jigen releases his grasp on Lupin. He’s got a blush the color of carmine on his face when he grumbles, “I don’t know how that woman deals with you in such a state all the time.”

“She likes me best when I’m my sweetest,” says Lupin cheekily. He’s sat at the edge of the bed now, undoing his yellow tie while whistling. Jigen goes to retrieve his hat and newspaper from the coffee table, scoffing. He has nothing left to say.

It’s hard to pinpoint when their relationship became like this. Jigen feels this is how it’s always been, like they’re devoted one moment and only business partners the next. He doesn’t even recall Lupin bothering to explain himself the first time they kissed; they were in France and they were young, barely even men.

The memory of Lupin having hair longer than an inch is laughable. He would comb it in earnest back then, unsatisfied until it curled out above his brow.

They’d kissed when he’d gotten it cut, and so many times in the decades after that Jigen can’t be sure if it’s of any significance. Lupin, for his part, won’t admit to any motivations for it, if they exist.

Days later, Lupin the enigma is whining buck naked in a Parisian hotel room. “Fuuujiko,” he bleats sleepily from underneath the sheets. “Come back to bed and kiss me, my darling.”

Fujiko combs her fingers through her brown hair, that hair that Lupin loves to press his nose into and smell, and laughs in kind. “But _darling,_ I have places to be. Besides that,” she speaks softly here, her tone in that saccharine range that makes Lupin weak in the knees. “Kisses are for good boys only.”

Lupin scrambles to sit up. “I’m a good boy, Fujicakes, I promise. I love you!”

She laughs again and sits back down on the bed. Lupin goes to hold her, but she puts one finger to his mouth.

“You, Lupin,” her hand cups his jaw. “Are a very, very bad boy.”

“Huh?” He replies dumbly.

Fujiko pinches the fat of his cheek and Lupin makes a confused noise. “I hate womanizers and liars like you,” she says, but Lupin feels like it means something else. (No, actually, she was being honest.)

When he’s with Jigen again, as things are in their natural state of affairs, Lupin retells his encounter.

Jigen is decidedly uninterested. But they’re alone in a sleeper car of a train, and the last time he tried to choose sleep over Lupin he’d been woken up by flamethrower to the ass.

“She’s probably just trying to get something out of you. In fact, why don’t you think back to why we’re headed to Spain right now?”

Lupin purses his lips and fiddles with the lapel of his green coat. Why, of course, the answer is that Fujiko has tipped them off to an extravagant necklace that’s mid transit to Barcelona for display, but...

“Do you think she’s mad at me?”

No response. Jigen is now tampering with the smoke detector above the lavatory door, cursing under his breath.

“Jigen, I’m kinda baring my heart right now.”

That earns him a doubtful glance. Let it be known that playing counselor to Lupin’s stints with women, especially with Fujiko, is Jigen’s least favorite past time. Lupin can see his marksman’s shoulders move beneath the black wool of his suit jacket before there’s a _click_ and Jigen tosses the smoke detector on the carpet.

“Alright, so what happened, dummy?”

“She wouldn’t kiss me! My lips are dying, dying from a lack of Fujiko’s love--”

Jigen laughs so hard the flame the was holding to the end of his cigarette goes out. He blinks down at his hand, clicking the lighter a couple times again-- the curtain gets pulled half way open and Jigen, finally successful, taps the off the ash at the end of his paper out the window.

“For a master mind criminal, you’re real slow on the uptake sometimes, Lupin.” Jigen scratches at a part of his brow under his hat, showing Lupin his downcast eyelashes for a moment. He’s smiling, tobacco stained teeth glinting.

“She must be playing hard to get. Women are so fickle.” Lupin squints when the sunlight hits his eyes, sighing through his nose and eying Jigen’s pursed mouth around the filter. He’s  hankering for a smoke suddenly.

“Lupin, playing hard to get means she wouldn’t fuck you. And trust me, I know you guys have done that more than a few times.” A pause. Jigen has his thinking face on, twisting the end of his beard between his thumb and index finger. “And it’s not just a wo--”

The cigarette has been swiped from his mouth.

“Hey, jackass, why don’t you smoke your own?” He sounds annoyed, but doesn’t move to take it from his partner. Instead, he lets Lupin lean over him to breathe a smooth stream of smoke out the window.

“Sorry, what were you saying, Jigen dear?”

Jigen opens his mouth, and then presses it into a thin line. He huffs, reclining further into the cot.

“She’s not playing hard to get. She just doesn’t love you, or whatever stupid idea you’ve gotten stuck in your head.” His hat is tilted nearly off his head, guarding his eyes from the sun and casting a stark shadow over the bridge of his nose.

They look at each other for a time, Lupin bent over Jigen with his elbows rested on the window sil. The train rumbles, and far ahead the horn screams. Arm stretching out, Louis Vuitton cufflinks glinting in the light, Jigen plucks the cigarette from where it hangs on Lupin’s bottom lip and puts it back at the corner of his mouth.

Lupin’s mind tells him to lean down and press a kiss to the underside of Jigen’s jaw, a thought not uncommon by any means, but one he’s never relented to. There’s only so much he can take from Jigen before an explanation will be demanded-- and Lupin likes things the way they are. He tears his eyes away from Jigen’s neck and pulls himself back to reality.

“Well, so long as she receives my love, I don’t care if my dear Fujiko returns it or not. Her body is more than enough!”

“Go sit over there. It’s almost time to start the job.”

Jigen fixes his hat and lies back down with his hands tucked behind his head. Lupin goes to eavesdrop on the conductor radio channel, his mind wandering to the shape of Jigen’s mouth.

The job is successful insofar as getting the necklace. Actually keeping it is another story, one that Jigen is quickly growing tired of. Goemon, who isn’t even with them for half the jobs, is getting annoyed with the lack of revenue too. Lupin just gives his same old spiel about how Jigen clearly doesn't know the first thing about women if he expects any less than being cheated in the end and Jigen resigns himself to the fact that Lupin’s ‘insights’ on women will always be terrible.

So now, they’re in Spain. For how long, nobody knows or cares-- save for Zenigata, but that bumbling cop has never managed to cuff Lupin for more than a minute. Jigen passes the time wandering the tiny streets looking for good tobacco, eating this and that, and enjoying his own company.

He arrives at hostel that has become their stay for the night, and Lupin is yapping pleasantly on the phone, saying _yes, of course we’ll be there, anything for you._

He exchanges a look with Goemon.

“I hope you don’t mean we as in us.”

Lupin takes a break from kissing the receiver of the phone, glancing at his companions with lips still puckered. His face slowly breaks into a beseeching grin, and before Jigen can even scowl properly, it’s 9pm and he’s downing his fifth glass of champagne in the foyer of a mansion with ceilings twenty feet high.

“ _Oui_ , I mean we,” he grumbles into the rim of the glass, teeth gritting at the memory of Lupin’s face.

Let’s take it from the top.

Jigen has never liked crowds, isn’t in the mood to schmooze, and sees no payout for trailing Lupin into another one of Fujiko’s traps. He doesn’t even know why he’s here, as a matter of fact--

Not being able to add up the pieces has Jigen’s drunken stupor turning into all harumphs and bah-humbugs. He swipes another glass from a passing waiter; for the hell of it, he grabs two and downs one as a palette cleanser for the other.

“Hey now, don’t have all your fun before the night’s even started.” He hears English. The flute is whisked away from his mouth half in the middle of drinking, some of it dribbling onto his mouth and into his beard. It’s Lupin. Of course it is.

“I can shoot any of these guys while I’m drunk off my ass, don’t worry.” He doesn’t bother bringing up the fact that Goemon has already drank himself to sleep, now perfectly still and holding his sword like a child at one of the dinner tables.

“Sorry, I don't speak Japanese,” says Lupin, sipping at the rest of the champagne with a coy smile. “Why don’t you tell me your name?”

Oh great. They’re playing this game. Jigen, feeling naked since his hat was wrestled away from him at the coat check, rolls his jaw and and folds his arms.

“Tsugimoto.”

“Is that your first name?” And then, as if he hasn't been patronizing enough: “We use our given names more comfortably here.”

Jigen huffs like a bull through his nose. People nearby look strangely at the duo, murmuring. “No. It’s Daisuke. Tsug--” He catches himself, biting his own tongue from falling into habit. “My name is _Daisuke_ Tsugimoto.”

“What a great name,” Lupin says, the corners of his eyes crinkling with mirth. Jigen feels a vein pop in his neck.  “Daisuke.”

 _“_ Yeah. Sure. Bye.”

“Ahh, ararahhuuhh wait, wait wait. I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Lu-- Ah, Rene. Ferrand.” Lupin does his best to bargain without saying a word, imploring Jigen to forgive him by his eyes only.

Daisuke Tsugimoto, a businessman attending the charity ball out of the goodness of his heart, sighs. It’s supposed to come out irritated or exasperated, but he smiles, and that is all the permission Rene Ferrand needs to plop the empty wine glasses at the nearest table and take Daisuke by the arm onto the dance floor.

They stop short beneath a gold and crystal chandelier. Daisuke has one hand on the small of Rene’s back. The other is clasped with his partner’s such that their cufflinks to clink together on each spin. Rene, arm draped around his companion’s shoulder and mirroring his pose bumps the other with his hip. The band is playing a song with a plucking bassline, the brass quick and energetic.

“Lookin’ for someone?” Rene is leaned close now so that he can be heard over the music. His sideburns reek of aftershave.

Daisuke still has his face turned away, black eyes surveying the surrounding couples when he responds: “A woman.”

“Oh? You didn’t mention you had a date.”

“Date isn’t really the right word, but…” Rene is twirled out, then pulled back with a flourish. “Well, she’s really the only reason I came.”

“She certainly left you high and dry. It’s a shame, too, a handsome guy like you.” Rene’s voice takes on a strange, flirtatious lilt, beckoning the other to turn and look at him. Daisuke finds a hand pushing his hair to the side-- he thinks, if he weren’t shocked frozen by their closeness, he would have shouted.

His mouth hangs open, and he blinks dumbly. Lupin has chosen a terrible time to go into casanova mode, thinks Jigen-- or maybe, just a very convenient time, when their relationship as Daisuke and Rene is a jenga tower of lies. His smiles implies the latter and Jigen, never the type to be yanked around in any sense, steps his foot between Lupin’s ankles and dips him low to the ground. If Lupin is expecting it, he doesn't show it-- his head is tossed back in the momentum, adams apple exposed.

He blinks up at the ceiling, unable to focus on the twinkling chandeliers and gold engravings. Chin slowly dipping, Lupin peers up at Jigen to see the curl of his smirk. There's a fervor buzzing in both their hearts now, sides pressed together with warmth seeping through the layers of linen and tweed.

“ _Monsieur_ Ferrand!”

Rene perks up at the sound. Daisuke pulls away and allows his partner to stand up straight at attention. Fujiko is dressed in a sequined red dress and long, white gloves, and perhaps her most interesting accessory, is another woman on her arm. Arsene-Rene Lupin-Ferrand looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

“ _Monsieur_ Ferrand?”

“Ah. Ahaha, oh, M-Margot! There you are! I knew I’d see you here.” Rene is clutching onto Daisuke’s arm for dear life, sweat beading at the back of his collar. ‘Margot’ only tilts her head, smiling. The other woman, a blonde with hair curling just by the curve of her shoulder, laughs and murmurs something into her date’s ear, showing Daisuke and Rene her finely manicured fingernails and numerous golden rings.

Her marriage finger is bare.

“Who, uh--” Rene sounds like he’s choking on air. Daisuke takes it upon himself to step on the other’s waxed shoe, unlinking their arms and clearing his throat.

“Miss Margot,” says Daisuke with his accent thick over the English like a glaze. “Who’s this?”

“Oh my. _Monsieur_ Tsugimoto, I didn’t recognize you.” Margot laughs airily and Daisuke struggles to keep himself from hiding away from her gaze. There are times he wishes his beard would grow over the entirety of his face. “This is my friend, Rinko. Maybe the two of you will get along?”

He takes her hand and kisses it. Beside him, Rene rolls his eyes.

Lupin and Fujiko have begin their arms race of lies. Lupin has been on the losing side ever since he’d been forced to play as Councilman _Nipple._


End file.
